[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Quite naturally, this incident cast a pall over the Home Again party. Cora and
her group slipped away quite early. A charming funeral was held two days later
for Marilyn and during the next few weeks, the police set up patrols about the
streets of Glen Hills. However, they had no success by the time the next
meeting of the Garden Club was held on this occasion at the home of Cora
Lachese, herself, where custom had shifted it from Helen s home after Helen
had left.
Achmed gave us what I must admit was an interesting talk on Hemlock and
Related Poisons. I had had no idea, myself, how many lethal substances were
available in our fields and woods; and I imagine few of us had, for I saw many
of the members taking notes. But after the talk, over the coffee and cakes,
the talk inevitably turned to the subject of the murderer, still no doubt
lurking among us.
& The terrible thing is, said Helen, casting a judicious eye on Cora. You
can never tell who he might choose for his next victim!
Quite right! boomed Cora. And, snapping open the sensible leather shoulder
bag she had been wearing, rather surprisingly in her own home, she produced a
snub-nosed, thirty-two revolver. Belonged to my little brother Tommy the one
who was a major in the army, you know. Dear Tommy, taught me to shoot like a
man The revolver went off suddenly, clipping a rather good-sized antler from
the deer head overhanging the fireplace. Oops how careless of me! Helen, how
can you forgive me! It just
missed your ear!
A miss, said Helen, rather grimly I thought, is as good as a mile.
As good as about two inches, in this case, I d say, replied Cora. It s
remarkable what an eye I have.
Tommy never ceased to be amazed at it. Well, what I wanted to show you all
Page 47
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
were these marvelous little bullets. Something they invented in the first
World War, and later outlawed by the United Nations, or some such thing. See
she took one out and showed it around. You just cut a deep cross in the soft
metal of the nose. When it hits, it spreads out dum-dum bullets, I believe
they used to call them&
While she was showing it around, someone commented on the color of the metal
of the bullet itself.
Well, yes, as a matter of fact they are silver, said Cora. Rather chic,
don t you think? Don t you think so, Helen?
Oh, indeed, Cora dear, murmured Helen.
And so our even tenor of life continued although the murderer was not found. A
couple of rather sad suicides occurred, however, to cloud the bright June
sunshine for we were now into mid-summer. Only a week or so after the Garden
Club party, Joan Caswell, Cora s second most reliable hench-woman, apparently
drowned herself in her own lily pond; and Maria Selzer, the next in line,
while doing her morning TV exercises, managed to judo-chop herself on the back
of the neck, killing herself instantly.
With this last tragedy a shifting of values became apparent in Glen Hills many
of Helen s lieutenants taking thought evidently on the insecurity of life, and
withdrawing from club offices to devote themselves more to home and family.
So, perhaps to bring a note of cheer back into all our lives, Cora Lachese
chose this moment to announce a gala evening to which all were invited. A
Night Lawn Party and
Beirfest, with Barbecue.
I must say it was a pleasant evening at first. Cora had produced a most
interesting new person a young man with a heroic name.
& Seigfried, Cora called him over as Helen, Suga, and I arrived together.
You must meet him.
Seigfried
. Seig now, he s gone again. A cultured anthropologist, Helen from the
college over at
Inglesby, at the moment. But he s studied abroad for years oh, there he is!
She pointed. And we perceived, under the paper lanterns of the lawn party, a
tall, shambling young man in a tweed suit. We all moved off to meet him. But
I, for one, got waylaid by someone halfway there and never did reach his side.
The next I looked he was not to be seen. Neither, for that matter, were Cora
or
Helen.
However, I quickly ceased to worry about them. The beer Cora had ordered was
evidently infernally strong stuff. Either that or I but I m sure it was the
beer. I have met nobody who was at Cora s that night who did not admit to
being a little, at least, uncertain about what went on and what they remember.
In my case, confusion begins later in the evening. Cora had announced an
entertainment, while standing by the fire pit where the meat had been
barbecued. The fire was mainly red coals by that time. But I
remember her flinging up her arms, dramatically in its dim glow, and bellowing
out
Seigfried
!
At that there was a sudden explosion as I remember of red smoke from the fire
pit. And there leaped into view a figure that no more resembled the youth I
had seen, than a sabre-toothed tiger resembles something like well Sam. The
figure was naked except for a breechclout and feathers, and twice
Seigfried s size.
I became aware then of Achmed standing behind me. And at the sight of
Seigfried, I saw him start violently and begin to slip away. What possessed
me, then, I do not know. But I immediately grabbed him.
Page 48
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
No, you don t
! I cried drunkenly and triumphantly. I had caught hold of his pudgy hand,
and he squirmed and pulled against my grasp.
Meanwhile, Seigfried was dancing before the firepit with great leaps and
bounds. Suddenly, he yelled at the top of his voice and pointed in the
direction of Suga and myself. The whole crowd turned to look.
Ahani, beja ylarl
yelled Seigfried, or something sounding like that. And suddenly, without
warning, Suga went to pieces.
I mean that literally. I was drunk, of course. It was undoubtedly a
hallucination we all had. But one moment, Achmed seemed to be standing there
like any other human being; and the next he began to come apart. His head
tumbled off his shoulders and went bouncing along the ground like a great, fat
weasel. His body tumbled after, leaping and rolling and bounding away,
thinning out as it went until it looked like a running hound and howled like a
hound, too, a hound on the trail of its quarry. His left arm dropped off; and,
hissing like a snake, began to glide but why go on? It was a hallucination.
There is no need to go into gruesome details.
Yet I cannot forget the way I imagined these these things
, these parts
, to begin their chase of the hapless Seigfried. At his first sight of them he
had lost whatever nerve he had originally had. With a terrified shriek he
seemed to turn to flee. But the parts of Achmed seemed to be everywhere about
the grounds. They hunted him high and low. They hunted him out of arbors,
through summer houses. They hunted him from the midst of screaming women where
he tried to hide; and finally once more before the fire pit, they closed in
upon him as if to blanket his shrinking body with their own shapeless selves.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]